


we've learned to hide our bottles in the well

by Care



Category: The Office (US) RPF
Genre: F/M, Homecoming, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-11-30
Updated: 2007-11-30
Packaged: 2018-01-25 06:40:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1636967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Care/pseuds/Care
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>BJ's mother calls him on Thanksgiving.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we've learned to hide our bottles in the well

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my wonderful beta ChibiRHM for providing cheer and criticism.
> 
> Written for bethfrish.

BJ's mother calls him on Thanksgiving:

"Sweetie, before you say anything, I just want you to know that I don't love you any less for not coming to spend Thanksgiving at home, but your father says he's cutting you out of our will if you don't come home for Hanukkah. Now, this isn't my idea, Ben, but your father won't hear of anything else and I know you've wanted that set of ancient encyclopedias since you were eight, so tell that silly boss of yours that the holidays are a time for family and you're three-thousand miles away from yours."

He doesn't want to tell her that he's never actually liked those encyclopedias, that it's just one of those things that his mother decided to make up about him, so he agrees.

It's only a midseason replacement that he's working on anyway. It's funny enough, but BJ doesn't have enough faith in NBC that they'll let it stay on air.

He buys his plane ticket the next morning.

**

BJ doesn't realize he and John are on the same flight to Boston until they run into each other in LAX. He's sitting in the waiting area with his battered Apple laptop with a sticker that says, "I majored in liberal arts. Would you like fries with that?" (something Mindy picked out for him when they went to Santa Monica -- she's thoughtful).

He's just opened his computer when someone taps his shoulder and he turns to see John standing there, bag in hand, his face wreathed in a bemused smile.

"Hey, man," BJ stands. "What's up? Are you going home?"

John glances up at the gate number and waves his boarding pass in answer. "We're on the same flight then?"

"Yeah, guess so," BJ answers. And then he runs out of things to say.

"Well," John says thoughtfully. "We can split the cab fare to Newton."

BJ glances at him and nods. He can't remember the last time he saw John back home. Probably ran into him at Blockbuster during winter break when they were in college.

He takes his iPod out of his hoodie pocket and unwinds the headphones. When he looks over, John's done the same. His screen tells BJ that he's listening to the Shins.

Of course.

**

The total bill, counting tip, comes out to approximately fifty dollars. BJ spends the ride leaning his forehead against the freezing glass and watching the reflections of the Cambridge streetlights bobbing on the surface of the Charles. He likes the part where the car rounds the curve on the Pike, right before the tolls. When you're riding on the way to Boston, you can see the entire skyline laid out in front of you.

John jiggles his leg and stares out of his window. They pass the Radio Disney building and BJ wonders whose idea that was -- to put a radio station next to the highway.

Newton Center is completely empty when they pull up to the red light in front of Starbucks. It's a warm cold outside, the type of cold just before snow. He breathes on the window and writes HELLO backwards with his finger in the fog. John leans over him and writes HELP underneath.

**

"Ben, I fixed you something. Come and have something to eat before you go to bed. You must be starving after your trip. Jesse had some when he got in and he _loved_ it. Come on, come on."

BJ kisses his mother on the cheek and squeezes her shoulder through her old periwinkle bathrobe. She smells like the same face cream she's always used. He hangs his coat up in the hall closet like always, but his parents changed some of the photographs in the picture frames clustered on the telephone table. Updated them.

"I found this new way to make matzo balls and it's fantastic, Ben. I made some for your father and he just raved. Your brother liked that too - Lev, not Jesse - but I didn't know what you would think, Ben. You'll have to have some later and tell me. Are you _eating_ out there in California, sweetie? You look so thin! Was that John taking the cab with you? That boy was always very nice. Did I tell you I ran into his mother at the library the other day?"

She sticks a plate in the microwave and crosses the room to get a glass out of the cabinet. They've redone the kitchen since the last time he was home. He doesn't even recognize it anymore.

"Eat. Eat, eat, eat! I know they didn't feed you on that flight."

He shovels the food in his mouth and looks at the piles of old _Boston Globes_ stacked against the kitchen table. His mother sweeps invisible crumbs from the surface with her hand and sits down across from him. She might have more lines around her eyes and mouth, but he can't really tell.

"I kept your room the same. Your father wanted to make it a second study, but I told him that if he doesn't keep his first one clean, I wouldn't let him have your room."

BJ puts his plate in the sink and leans against the counter. "It's great, Mom. Really. It's great."

**

His room really is the same, down to the model airplane hanging over his bed, the one he made out of a kit when he was ten, and the same woven rug in front of his desk. BJ checks the loose floorboard and even all his old porn magazines from high school are there, mixed with comic books he read until he was way past the age of appropriateness, and jar of marbles he hid there when he was eight.

On his nightstand is a copy of _1984_ from when he was home last. He checks the marked page and reads a paragraph, but he doesn't remember what came before. He'll have to start from the beginning.

He doesn't bother to change into pajamas and goes to sleep with the light on.

**

BJ walks into the bathroom the next morning to find his thirteen-year-old brother shaving his sparse facial hair, squinting into the mirror and moving the razor carefully.

"You have nothing to shave," BJ observes, leaning in to take a closer look.

Lev jumps and nicks himself, a thin cut welling just at his jawline. "Dude, watch it!" His voice is scratchy and breaks a little. He's taller, has an outbreak of acne on his forehead, beneath a tuft of dark hair.

"Got a girlfriend yet, Lev? You heartbreaker, you," BJ teases.

"No," his brother says defensively and glares. "Piss off. I have school in an hour."

"Oh _yeah_ ," BJ laughs. "Middle school."

As soon as he wanders back into the hallway, Lev shuts the door in his face.

**

By mid-morning, BJ has accompanied his mother to her job, gone grocery shopping, and put his dirty laundry in the wash. His phone buzzes while he's watching daytime television, waiting for the washing machine to finish, and he expects it to be Mindy for some stupid reason. She was supposed to be taking a later flight out.

The caller ID says it's John though and BJ flips his phone open. "Hey."

"Hey."

"What's up?'

John's quiet for a minute and then he laughs, loosely. "I'm bored."

"Yeah," BJ says, staring at the TV screen. "Me too."

"There's nothing to do in Newton."

"We're supposed to be on vacation."

"Yeah, but it's not like we're at the beach. It's like twenty fucking degrees out." John clears his throat. "So, yeah. I was wondering if you were doing something."

BJ blinks. "Now?"

"Yeah. Sure. Now. Yeah," John says.

"No," BJ says after a second. "I'm not doing anything right now."

"You wanna grab lunch? Sweet Tomatoes or something?"

"Yeah. That sounds good. In an hour or so?"

"Sure. I'll come get you. You still live in the same place, right?"

BJ closes his eyes briefly and opens them again. "Yeah. Still living in the same place."

**

"My mom wants to invite your family over for dinner," John says by way of greeting.

BJ opens the passenger side door and slides in. He hasn't driven with John since senior year of high school, on the way home after a cast party, John slowly and carefully maneuvering the streets because BJ was wasted and he himself was a little bit buzzed. It's the same car in any case.

"I'll tell my mom," BJ says and reaches back for his seatbelt.

**

John gets three slices of pizza with everything on them and spends half of lunch picking off the mushrooms. BJ watches him as he chews his chicken and broccoli.

"Why didn't you just not get the mushrooms?" BJ asks, taking a sip of Coke.

John shrugs. "I don't know. I've always gotten this." He neatly piles his picked-off mushrooms on the edge of his paper plate. "Do you like mushrooms?"

"Yeah," BJ says and John pushes the plate towards him. He eats them one at a time. "Maybe next time you should ask for everything except the mushrooms and they can save the mushrooms for people that will eat them."

"No one is missing mushrooms," John retorts.

"Hey, man," BJ says in his Most Serious voice. "There are starving babies in Africa."

"Fuck that," John says. "Even they wouldn't want these mushrooms."

**

"Have you ever driven around the Concord rotary?" John asks once they're back in the car.

"You mean the one by the prison? Yeah." BJ raises an eyebrow. He's good at that.

"Do you want to go drive around it?"

BJ stares at him. "Excuse me, _what_?"

"Do you want to go drive around the Concord rotary?" John asks again with infinite patience.

"What the _fuck_ are you on?" BJ says.

"Nothing, but I have some weed in the glove compartment," John answers, pulling out of the parking space. "What?" he says, in BJ's incredulous face. "I bought some off Rob Stein. Remember him from high school? He is still exactly the same. Still growing weed with blacklights in his closet. Still living with his mom."

BJ is quiet.

"So, rotary or not?"

"Let's go smoke the fucking pot in the South parking lot," BJ says.

**

BJ packs the pipe bowl carefully, grinding his thumb into the pot and picking off the specks that stick to his skin and putting them back in the bowl. He hands it over to John, who takes a Bic lighter from his pocket and flicks it quickly, lighting the pipe. He inhales, eyes closed. John hands the pipe back as smoke escapes the corners of his mouth, filtering back into the car. The air fills with the sweet, sticky smell of weed.

"Shiiiiiit," John mutters after he exhales. "I haven't done this in a while."

BJ sticks the end of the pipe in his mouth and sucks. He can feel the smoke burning its way down his throat, like the edge of a razor-sharp knife. He really hasn't done this in a while. When he gives it back, his eyes are watering in the corners. He coughs, once. "Yeah."

John takes another hit. They hand it back and forth a few more times before the high comes on.

"Jesus Christ," John says and then giggles. "Everything's fucking green!"

It strikes BJ as funny too and the two of them laugh until their stomachs hurt. When he opens his eyes again, BJ's arms are numb and his mouth is dry. He feels like he's in some sci-fi movie with special effects, like he's moving and his body has to catch up with him. The windows of the car shimmer. His shirt is _really_ soft.

"My shirt's really soft," he announces.

John starts laughing again, hysterically.

And then he stops.

BJ's caught in mid-laugh and the sound escapes him before he can stop it. He shuts his mouth and stares at John. John stares back.

They kiss.

**

Jacking off another guy's cock is a completely new experience. BJ isn't really sure what he thinks.

But then John wraps his hand around BJ's dick and BJ stops thinking.

**

"You should ask Mindy out," John says.

They've cleaned up the car as best they could with the box of tissues from the backseat. BJ's pants are still unzipped, but they're pulled up now, and he's coming down from the high. The air feels cold, too cold to be normal at all. Not that this day has been normal in any way.

"What?" he says, finally.

John's voice sounds like it's coming from really far away. "You should ask Mindy out."

BJ tries to picture Mindy, but he can't think of anything beyond how John's tongue was just in his mouth and he had one of his hands fisting John's hair, _fuck_. "Mmm."

"We should do this again," John says lightly.

BJ looks at him. He can't tell if he's referring to the smoking or the sex. "Sure," he replies. "That'd be fun."

**

Of course they _don't_ smoke again.

At least not while they're home.

**

On their first day back at work, Mindy sweeps into the writer's room and makes a beeline to give BJ a hug. She smells like something girly and fruity. He hugs her back.

"Let's get dinner or something sometime," he blurts out and colors, thinking about the car.

Mindy stares at him and grins. "Like a date, Benjamin?" she teases.

"Yeah. Like a date," he says and gives her a challenging look.

"That sounds good," Mindy says.

He smiles.

 


End file.
